The wrong side of the tracks

With The wrong side of the tracks, I work on a specific area of Modena, my city, which lies beyond the railway and hosts a microcosm of people mostly excluded from the city life: a predominantly Ghanaian community, the second in Italy by number of inhabitants. Here, the sharing of the same space is challenging and tense because grounded upon prejudices and on the impermeable nature of the groups themselves, within a real segregation perimeter, even if not physically present. The wrong side of the tracks is an American expression used to indicate that part of the city, beyond the railroad tracks, where the poorest people live; it is mostly African Americans. Just a few steps from the train station, as if they were suspended in an empty, desolate waiting room, about to leave for a new journey most likely towards the dreamed England, the community members live in a daily state of precarity. The constant perception of never putting down roots in Modena, but only passing through, forces people to live in a state of perennial alienation.